Books and Films
Bet Van Lew is a major character in The Secrets of Mary Bowser, a novel by former college professor Lois Leveen. The novel became a Target book club pick in August of 2012.
The 1987 television movie A Special Friendship tells a fictionalized story of the friendship and pro-Union collaboration of Van Lew (who is presented as a young, rather than middle-aged, woman in the film) and her former slave Mary Bowser. The 1990 television movie Traitor in My House tells the story of ELizabeth Van Lew from the perspective of her niece; Mary Kay Place portrays Elizabeth.
Her story was also fictionalized in 1995 children's book The Secret of the Lion's Head by Beverly Hall, and in the 2006 novel, Only Call Us Faithful: A Novel of the Union Underground by Marie Jakober.
Read more about this topic: Elizabeth Van Lew
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